Relief/Diner Online Submissions System

"Christian faith is spoken into our bodies." ~ Marc Ostlie-Olson. Luther Seminary God Pause. 9-4-2009

My husband asked, “Why do these things always happen to us?” We live between enough and not enough. We depend on plumbers to call and honor warranties without hesitation. We wait, in our ignorance of basic home maintenance, shivering through cold showers when our hot water heater quits working. At the mercy of our own choices, some foolish, others misguided, some crafted out of the naïve assumption that love always finds a way, we fight bitterness as we splash cold water on our faces each morning.

My daughter and I walked down
to the bridge on main street, laughing
as we slipped along the sidewalk in the
dark, she cuddling her small dog to her
chest, and I leading the way, walking
swiftly, ducking the fingers of low branches
that sought to snag our hair. We stopped
on the corner, before crossing, listening
to the loud report of fireworks. Still, we
could not see their bloom in the sky
before us. Misty rain coated our skin,
hair-raised, goose-pimpled. We laughed.
Should we go on? The rain began to soak
into our clothing. The sign changed to walk;
we raced across the street, turned, and hurried
past the apartment building blocking our view
of the river. We reached the bridge
on Main Street, panting lightly. Turning,

“Do you mind waiting out here?” My husband glances towards the room where his friend is hooked up to half a dozen machines, brain dead according to his wife. She had her daughter call to ask his friends to come and say good-bye. I wait in the hall of this bright intensive care unit, large oval command center surrounded by rooms with glass doors. Some closed off with curtains but most exposing the occupant to any passing stranger. I try not to peer into those spaces, keep my eyes averted from bleak possibilities that I’m not ready to consider. My birthday is this week – 50, half a century, old to the young and young to the old. Harold is 67. He was born only five years before my husband. Sixties contemporaries. My husband returns. “Let’s get out of here.”